Links: Smallville sucks, Thunderbolt Hurt, and Peek-a-Boo Cap

Science Fiction

• SciFi costume exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.
• Kaylee from Firefly is joining the cast of Stargate: Atlantis.

Superheroes

• Even though I enjoyed most of this season of Smallville, I was never what you'd call "excited" to watch it. I think I've lost interest and am watching it out of a) habit, and b) curiosity to see if they're even going to try to make it flow into a reasonable representation of the familiar Superman mythos. In other words: I just want it to be over. Adding Supergirl to the cast next season does nothing to change that.
• Crap. I knew it wasn't going to happen, but I held out hope that somehow Sam Elliott would be invited back to reprise the role of General Thunderbolt Ross in the new Hulk movie. No such luck. Instead, we get... William Hurt? This is the first change from the Ang Lee film that I'm disappointed about. I mean, not just losing Elliott, but William Hurt? He's going to have to really stretch himself from the sleepy performances I usually see him give.
• Okay, this is hilarious. Kyle Baker's posted a couple of pages from the last issue of his maniacally fun Plastic Man series for DC. The humor is an obvious parody of the dark, "mature" comics that DC and Marvel have become so fond of, but apparently not everyone got the joke. Just goes to show how uptight some comics fans have become. Still... funny!
• I don't know anything about the I Know Joe Kimpel blog. Is it written by Joe Kimpel? Or just someone who knows him? I've no idea! I don't even know who Joe Kimpel is. All I know is that someone paints nice pictures of Mary Marvel and Supergirl. I wish he (she?) kept the Black Canary one going though instead of turning her into Batgirl.
• Marvel is developing a Captain America movie that'll be half modern tale and half period piece.
• They're also still trying to work out an Avengers film.
• And speaking of Captain America, Bully's post about about Cap's playing a very frightening game of Peek-a-Boo has to win like "Post of the Year" or something.

Writing is Hard

• Stephen King's dusted off an old, previously unpublished novel from his Richard Bachman days. It's called Blaze. What's interesting to me is his "Full Disclosure" forward (scroll to the bottom of the Amazon link to read it) that gives insight into what he calls "trunk novels," which is early work that you were never able to find a publisher for. I hear that most first novels are unpublishable except, as in this instance, when you've made a name for yourself and have a following of fans who want to read everything you've ever written. That's not negative commentary about King, whom I love, I just think it's cool that even he had a trunk full of unpublishable novels. It's also interesting to hear about how his opinion of that material changed a couple of times.